Took my car in for the second free oil change, and the dealer wanted to do a tire rotation. I prefer to do these myself, both to keep an eye on the brakes and to prevent the "technician" from zapping the lug nuts on with an air wrench set to "Peterbilt".

I lifted the rear wheel with a floor jack under the shock mount. Front end was lifted with the car's scissors jack under the sill lift point. The other two wheels were blocked securely before lifting, of course. The stock scissors jack works, but is an obvious afterthought (bB's don't have spare wheels).

Pulled left rear wheel and drum. Wow, those rear brakes are tiny! I've had motorcycles with bigger shoes! Checked brake hoses and ABS wiring and all was well. Twisted the hub and bearings feel smooth. Measured brake shoe thickness and checked drum for scoring.

Pulled left front wheel. measured disk pad thickness and disk thickness. Checked CV joint boots and steering boot. Checked brake hoses and ABS wiring. All appeared to be in good shape.

Repeated process on the right side. All was in the same good order. With only 7500 miles on the car, I didn't expect to find any problems.

Here are the measurements I made:

Tread depth:
LR: 6.4-6.7mm
LF: 5.2-5.4mm
RR: 6.4-6.6mm
RF: 4.9-5.3mm

Brake shoe lining thickness:
LR: 3.62mm
RR: 3.58mm

Brake pad lining thickness:
LF: 9.8mm
RF: 9.0mm

Brake disk thickness:
LF: 21.9mm
RF: 21.9mm

All the tires had 30PSI of JDM air still in them. The spare had only 50PSI so I pumped it up to 60.

I washed the wheels (the rears seem to pick up a lot of debris), dried and reinstalled, rotating front to rear as specified.

FWD vehicles are pretty hard on their front tires, and the xB seems to be no exception. The front tires showed more wear than the rears. They were wearing evenly, though so all seems to be well. Unfortunately, I didn't measure the tire when new, so I don't have a datum from which to work.

The RF tire and brake pad seemed to have a bit more wear than the left side , so it might be that the RF brake is working a bit harder than the LF brake. The car doesn't pull when braking, and the difference is small so I'm not going to worry about it.

Keep in mind that these numbers are for a stock vehicle driven in a suburban setting by old (by SL standards) folks. Your mileage may vary!

George

 

if your waiting to rotate your tires untill 7.5k, no duh the front is going to be worn down.... ive rotated all vehicles' tires every 3- 4 k. I have 45 series tires on my Focus,...I rotate and balance them every 3k... 7.5 k miles for a tire rotation is waay too long. My Camry owners manual say to change the oil every 7.5 k. i get it done every 3k. Im a photo tech, why do they call my my store's 300k photo machine "self cleaning" when they have people like me clean it ? because they want to make money on replacement parts....

 

Good info Goerge, BTW, most tire makers make tire with anywhere from 10-11 32s in their tires from the factory. You cold try a search for the maker, or go to www.tirerack.com and see if they have your tire there, they list the 32s on the tire from the factory for each tire.

If you ask most anyone who sells tires, they will tell you that 7K miles is standard for rotating tires. But like eveything else in this world, everyone has their own way of doing things, right or wrong. Dont imply that someone is stupid for doing what they do, weither you think its right or wrong, or if you think that everyone is out there to make a buck by suggesting you do not change/rotate parts more frequently.

 

i rotate my tires on an every other oil change basis. For the scion I hope they don't do it themselves, because I know they don't use a torque wrench for the lugs, because from what I seen they just zap em' on as tight as they can.

 

Well, I'm not a particularly aggressive driver, so 7.5K works for me. On my RWD VWs, I don't rotate at all and the tires wear evenly!

There is a reason to wait until there is a measureable difference in tread before rotating. rotating too often will conceal alignment problems that show up in uneven tire wear.

George

 

At least at my dealer, the rotation is an extra cost option, designed to get a little more money out of that "free oil change" than toyota reimburses. I agree with you about the air wrench. Even if they use a "torque stick" they aren't all that accurate.

Besides, if you let them do the inspection, the report is simply if the parts are OK or need replacement, not one that you can use to keep track of wear.

If current wear is any indication, my next rotation will be at 22,500, when the front tires again become 1.0mm more worn than the rears. It took 7500 miles for the fronts to get 1.0mm ahead, and now that the rears are on the fronts they have to wear 2.0mm more than the rears before another rotation is needed.

George

 

killer dilligence george! thanks for posting!

 

Very nice write up. Positive karma point to you if I could.

 

this thread was pointless. of course the fronts wear more, they steer the car. of course nothing's gonna be wrong with the wiring and brakes unless you hit something. whoopdido, you can do a rotation. the pad measurements are of no use to anyone since it's all a matter of how you drive.

 

This thread has two uses that I can see. First, it lets people know how a car in normal operation wears. Second, it helps people who want to do similar maintainance themselves.

I'm looking forward to _your_ positive contributions. Let us know when you graduate from Toyota school!

George

 

good job on taking the high road george!

 

heh he

Thanks for the detailed info as usual George!

i never thought about letting the tires wear to a similar point as in the first rotation, letting you skip a rotation in between....

 

I don't understand why you didn't have the dealer check your equipment? So do the front brakes squeak? Did you adjust the rear brakes?

 

1. I prefer to do it myself, as I do not have much faith in the abilities of the dealer, particularly the lower-level "technicians" that do this sort of work at dealers. I may be old-fashioned, but when it is my safety at stake, I want to know it is right.

2. The dealer will only give "Good/Not Good" indications, not numbers I can use later on to guage when to replace parts.

3. Front brakes don't squeak. Never have.

4. Rear brakes are self-adjusting and were within spec.

George

 

Rear brakes can still be adjusted :D But if we can't trust the dealer then why have a warranty? :? If they mess up, we can get back at them after. I am a mechanic myself and can do all those things myself, but if I can get someone else to do it and not worry anything. I am cool, maybe because this is my first new car with a warranty and the dealer I go to is very well known for their mechanics. I am tired of working on my cars so that is why I bought a new one, if something brakes because of some thing they did. Then I can always throw it back at them, just my opinion.

Good to know you have a lot of knowledge though george.

 

Well, the warranty doesn't cover maintainance, so it comes down to whether I want to pay the dealer to do the work or whether I want to spend some time getting to know my Scion.

My experience is that if I have a dealer work on the car I often end up having to waste more time taking the car back to the dealer to get the job done correctly. It doesn't happen every time, but often enough that I want to avoid the experience. I really wish that I could have the dealer do the work and not worry about it, but that is not the situation with my local dealer. These are the people who couldn't be bothered to look up the stereo TSB even though I provided them with the number! The "technician" just noted "could not reproduce" and I had to waste another few hours getting the car back and forth to the dealer again.

I wish that my dealer had the excellent reputation for mechanics that yours does!

George

 

lower-level? and ugh... saftey? i understand while your driving around in your car, but what the hell were you doing using a scissor jack to rotate your tires?

 

With both opposite wheels wheels properly blocked, the scissors jack was quite secure. Sure, I'd love to have a car lift, but some things are out of my price range!

George

 

yeah totally... i bought a couple floorjacks when i bought my mr2 awhile back. you can find some decent ones from harbor frieght. my thing is... i wont use a scissor jack unless ive run out of options.

 

I have two floor jacks, but one of them is currently holding up a VW engine! I wanted to go throught the motions with the Scion jack anyway, since I might have to use it sometime to change a tire on the road.

George